Blog post

March 13, 2010 [LINK / comment]

Deluge of Democratic scandals

As the East Coast gets drenched with a monster rainstorm to close out the hellish Winter of 2009-2010, the Democratic Party is getting clobbered with a deluge of scandals -- moral, ethical, financial, you name it! Nancy Pelosi declared that the Democrats would "drain the swamp" of corruption in Congress after they took control in the 2006 election, and those words are coming back to haunt her. Soon, everyone will have forgotten all about Sen. Ted Stevens, Rep. Tom DeLay, and Jack Abramoff. This comes at a most inconvenient time, as President Obama is leading the political equivalent of Pickett's Charge on Capitol Hill, forcing the health care issue without a semblance of public consensus, or even majority support.

Just when the American people need reassurance that the government is collecting taxes in a fair and equitable manner, so that shared public policy goals may be realized in an atmosphere of mutual trust, the man with the greatest responsibility for that task has been exposed as a crook. Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) had to give up his chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee while an ethics probe is carried out to find out the connection between the many favors he received from various corporate interests and the tax laws that he helped bring about.

By amazing coincidence, another Harlem politician, Gov. David Paterson is facing another wave of accusations about political corruption. His key assistants have resigned, and it will be a minor miracle if he manages to finish out his term, which is actually the term of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, another sleazebag. Among other things, Paterson has accepted, and possibly actively sought, free tickets to New York Yankees baseball games, with a strong appearance of a quid pro quo. One expert/consultant calls those two scandals "catastrophic for the black community in America and particularly in Harlem." See the Washington Post.

And for bizarro comic relief, Rep. Eric Massa resigned his seat in Congress after admitting to flagrantly improper behavior. It nothing more than mildy bawdy "tickle fights," in his words, but to some of his former staffers and Navy shipmates, it was sexual harrassment. What was even weirder about this case was the question of how and why it came to light. Did Democratic leaders leak the story so as to get rid of a Democratic opponent of Obamacare, thereby making it just a bit easier to pass a modified health package the second time around? Briefly, Massa became a "hero" to conservatives, according to politico.com. Rush Limbaugh loudly protested the manner in which he was "outed," and Glenn Beck made a fool of himself by having Massa on his FOX News TV show for a full hour, violating his own cardinal rule of not wasting his viewers' time. Massa is clearly a flake of little long-term consequence. See the Washington Post

"Born Again Americans"

I make no bones about my devotion to civility in political discourse and seeking bipartisan cooperation on behalf of the public interest, whenever it is feasible. Many people falsely equate such an attitude as compromising conservative principles, which is too bad. But when it comes to bogus appeals from leftists in sheep's clothing, I am nobody's fool. Someone recently sent me a link to an inspirational music video at bornagainamerican.org, and something about it struck me as a little odd. So I took a closer look, and sure enough, it's an offshoot of Norman Lear's "People for the American Way," which takes the separation of church and state to an extreme. After doing some Googling, I came across a very apt critique of the "Born Again Americans" at dakotavoice.com, a blog based in Rapid City, South Dakota.